by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The Wednesday, February 16, 2022 meeting of the Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) occurred in the Wetmore Community Center building and started at 9 a.m. It lasted four, long, long hours. All three musketeers showed up: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Tom Flower.
The commissioners regaled us as usual with all the meetings and events they attended since the last muskie love fest. Just the usual government nonsense.
County Attorney Clint Smith said he attended the last Planning Commission meeting and that the two Short Term Rentals
ap-plicants there both had attorneys. He said there were some procedural issues and he wrote a memo about it. Clint also mentioned that the mysterious “demand letter”
that the muskies got last week from out-of-nowhere. (They won’t say what this is all about.) He said he wrote a response to it and they have to meet in executive session to discuss it. (Hmmmmm.)
It was announced that Road & Bridge employee Scott Camper got the assistant R&B Supervisor position.
Under New Business, Human Resources’s Braden Wilson said he interviewed several candidates for the BOCC Administrative Assistant job and he likes Candidate C. The muskies tell him to offer that person the job.
Next is the request for the Southern Colorado Economic Development District (SCEDD) (another one of the infinite number of quasi gov’t money-sucking entities that spend our tax money with no apparent real results) wants some moolah from the muskies for yes, another ephemeral “broadband project”. They want 1.5% of the almost million dollars the feds gave Custer County with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for this project. This would be $14,766. A bunch of other counties have already coughed up the protection money. The vote today would have the muskies send an application to the BOCC’s ARPA grant approval committee (composed of locals) asking for this dough.
Somehow, this triggers Flower who segues the discussion about this project into the controversial Custer County Economic Development Corporation’s (CCEDC) obsolete quest to build six, TALL, ugly towers in Happy Valley so broad-band service providers (like Secom, CTT) could use them to provide broadband service to a handful of the local peasants. This has been going on for around seven years!
What happened over the last week was that at the last muskie meeting, the CCEDC and their hired mercenary marketeer “grant writer” told the muskies that they had to submit a letter to one of the grant agencies that is funding this disaster immediately or the grant would be gone. The muskies said to the CCEDC that they couldn’t because the CCEDC hasn’t gotten the required Special Use Permits for the towers and the towers are over-height with regards to the county’s Zoning Resolution. This was apparently interpreted by the head of the CCEDC, one Charles Bogle, as
killing the project so the CCEDC sent out a press release that the Sentinel printed and was on social Placating the progressive spenders in the county (Don’t forget this thing’s current cost is $2.4 MILLION!!!!!) Flower says the muskies didn’t kill it, they only postponed it. Blah, blah, blah he goes on and on. Day agrees and says these are over-height and SUP’s gotta be done before we can proceed. Canda says ol’ Tommy is right, Bogle’s press release (PR) is “fake news” and we didn’t kill it.
Flower then brings up the muskies own press release (that we printed in the Sentinel ) that refutes the CCEDC’s “fake news” press release. The county’s PR was done by our Public Information officer. Flower says HE DIDN’T see it before it went out (and is about to have a MAJOR hissy fit over the fact that The Flowers did not see it). And how did THAT happen? Canda makes the mistake of saying. Well, he and Day saw it. Something must have happened so Tommy didn’t see it. Flower is about to explode but somehow controls it. (Phew.) Canda and Day then spend a few minutes trying to placate Tommy so he doesn’t throw a fit.
Somehow, the discussion got back to SCEDD’s request for $14.7k of our ARPA slush fund money. This goes on and on and on. Finally, one of the more observant and intelligent local peasants attending speaks up, and in the words of Socrates, says “you guys are making this too complicated!!!”. (Give this guy the grant!) Finally, the muskies pass a motion to ask the ARPA committee to cough up the moolah.
Next is the county’s sick leave policy and the COVID angles to it. Human Resources guru Wilson says the state and the feds want this and that. The county does this and that. This triggers a rant fest. On and on. Sick hours here, sick hours there. They finally postpone any decisions until they get some feedback from the other elected officials in the county.
Braden Wilson then brings up a whole bunch of financial resolutions the muskies must ok. This takes a while.
The muskie then go into “Executive Session” to discuss the
ominous “demand letter” from an outside attorney.
After that, Flower says he would like all three county commissioners to take some state “leadership” online course that he just finished. (This is precious. Flowers asking Canda and Day to take leadership courses after he was FORCED to take this due to his abominable behavior with several female county employees!) Canda and Day shut down The Flowers request brilliantly as Canda says he has already completed the course and then Day says he is only three hours away from finishing. No comment from Tommy.
That was it for New Business. Day then asks if there is anything else. Of course, Flower has some gems to discuss. He brings up the fact that the leftist Colorado legislators want to introduce a bill that would make it easy for county and municipal employees to form unions. Right now, it is hard for them to do so due to the current law. He, correctly, says this could bankrupt the county. (Please see a related article on this proposal elsewhere in this week’s Sentinel.)
Still seething from not getting to see the muskies PR on the towers before it went out, Flowers starts ranting how could this happen, what is the problem here. Why do we have a public information officer? Whine, whine, whine. How come I didn’t see this before it came out. (He’s about to BLOW!!!) Blah, blah, blah.
Canda and Day try to calm him down by changing the topic to their stance that they didn’t cancel the towers project. On and on. This works as Tommy holds it together. Barely. (This could have gotten pretty ugly watching a grown man have a temper tantrum over not seeing some trivial PR.)
Then, after FOUR HOURS, it is over. (Do you hear that beer can top opening, folks?)
Th- that’s all folks.

Editor/GG: This CCEDC towers project is beyond irresponsible. We’re talking $2.4 MILLION dollars of our tax money. $2.4
MILLION. We, as taxpayers,
are going to be stuck with maintaining these monstrosities forever. The access roads, the power, the lightning strikes, the insurance. On and on. Forever. This maintenance cost is supposed to be covered by the local telecom/broadband providers renting the towers for their transmitters. After seven years of marketing to them, the CCEDC DOES NOT HAVE ONE CONTRACT FROM ANY OF THEM TO RENT A SQUARE INCH. THUS, THE COUNTY HAS NO INCOME COMING IN TO DEFRAY OUR FUTURE COSTS. (One local provider has indicated that they MIGHT be interested in ONE tower. Might. Whoopy. This is NOT a contract so it means nothing.) We will be stuck paying forever for six towers to nowhere. Forever. Plus, can you imagine how much it will cost us to eventually tear them down and rehab the land! What businessman would spend $2.4 MILLION on an infrastructure project that HAS NO CUSTOMERS, SALES OR INCOME?! It is insane. After seven years NOT ONE local broadband provider is even mildly interested! Can stupid be fixed? NO! The muskies should stand up on their little muskie legs and KILL THIS INSANITY NOW. It is a total waste of time and money. Period. Act like the conservative Republicans you say you are. Kill it.)media as well, saying the bad muskies killed his ‘wittle’ project and that is soooooo bad. Based on Bogle’s PR, the usual handful of whiney locals libs cried like four year olds on FoolBook and this must have disturbed Flower tremendously (as NO criticism of The Flowers is
allowed), thus him bringing it up now.